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Story and Quests/leves
Gabby-air
Member UncommonPosts: 3,440
I'm not sure if any information is out there regarding this but I was wondering how exactly they plan to tell the story as many people seem to emphasize how good it is. So yes, is it much like lotro where you have one epic quest line and the rest of the world is filled with details regarding that or is every quest a story quest say like bioware games (granted it can't be that personal due to it being a MMO)? Also, is there much in terms of actual gameplay during these story arcs again like in lotro with cutscenes, instanced dungeons, etc or is it like "We are at war here soldeir! Now go kill ten rats" so more regular quests with a story like wow.
As for guildleves, from what i've seen there doesn't seem to be much in terms of variety and uniqueness and to me personally feel like f2p quests which im sure many will disagree. Also due to SE limiting how many of them do you can do and what not, will these really be an important part of the gameplay or will people just be grinding all day?
Which brigns me to another point, the grind. Many people seem to say that this will definitely be like FF11 with forced grouping and a lot of grinding but I was always under the impression that the devs were catering towards casuals? Could someone clarify what exactly is going on in that case?
So ye, It would definitely be helpful if some could explain how exactly these things work as I personally haven't played FF11 or any FF game for very long and due to many people saying "SE does things very differently" I'm intrigued as to what we'll get to see.
Comments
Final Fantasy XI:
The storylines for quests are quite involving, and the NPCs address and talk to you during most of them. You're not just an onlooker and regarded as nothing like . In FFXI there were 3 primary storylines for each nation that had their own story until about 1/2 way through were they all met and faced the same struggle, then they split into their own story again and finally joined again at the final part.
Then each expansion had their own extremely lengthy storylines, that revolved around several types of scenarios:
Cutscenes that required just talking to certain NPC in many areas of the game
Quests that required getting a certain item which resulted in fighting many enimes to get to and earn it and usually an NM too,
And finally a BCNM which were timed, instanced and level capped fights, and only allowed between 6-18 players to enter, all of which has unique strategies and bosses that would destroy you if not properly prepared for them.
Storyline Missions:
The III primary nations, Windurst, Bastok, and San d'Oria
Rise of the Zilart
Chains of Promathia
Treasures of Aht Urhgan
Wings of the Goddess and with this one all three nations once again had a series of storyline missions along side the main.
The 3 mini-scenarios from last year that can take a few days if you're good, or about a week to a month.
The 3 versions of Abyssea coming this year...which we're still trying to figure out how the 1st one works entirely.
Final Fantasy XIV:
So far from what we know about FFXIV, there is the main story which will more than likely take palce between the 3 primary city-states of Gridania, Ul'dah and Limsa Lominsa, and more than likely involve the other nations of Ishgard, Ala Mihgo, Sharlayan and the Garlean Empire whom are the primary evil faction and that which the main story revolves around.
Its been said we have the option to change the Deity we choose follow, thus leading many of us to believe each one will have a storyline regardling them and their role in Eorzea, there are 12 deities. Then there are also 12 beastmen races of which has also been hinted at being able to befriend some or all of them, through a faction system. If this is the case we very well could befrind and run a series of quests or missions for each one of those, then become hated with that one and befriend another or whatever.
Plus there is a guild hall for each class, of which is being speculated at at least 20 classes XIV will start with and from screens I've seen it appears we'll be abel to do quests which may have a story attached to them as well. Then of course there are the guildleves which don't have a particular in-depth story to them as far as we know at this time, but they could later on.
As far as the topic of grind goes, its the same in every MMO no matter how you look at it:
Some players prefer to solo only doing quests and be rewarded lumps of easy to earn XP, thus making it appear they are leveling faster than just fighting monsters, but those types of MMOs have thousands of pointless quests with no solid storyline; all with the same goal of kill 5, 10, 50 of said mob or single boss or deliver this item and return thus you're "grinding" through them,
Then there are players like me that enjoy fighting tons of enemies in a social-party as a means to lvl up with the in-depth storyline backing it up at intermittent points, thus its also a "grind"
Anyway, that should help a little...maybe!
Grind is the nature of the beast, it will always be there, if you are not looking for a grind then dont MMO lol.
Take for example the F2P games, they are huge grind fest, ever play Maple Story? Let me give you one quick example of a quest: Kill 10 of this monster, follow up kill 10 of this other monster, follow up after that one kill 10 of this monster, follow up kill 99 of the moster you killed first.... kill 300 of this monster you already killed 400 of lol, and so on and so forth. There is a bunch of wanted posters all over the place, and they ask you to kill 99 of this monster and 99 of that monster and 99 of that other monster...
While the whole kill 10 rats might seem bad, try killing 1000 of them like in Maple Story then you can come cry me a river about grind fest hehe.
But its not all bad, if they make the grind a bit friendly and fun to play it wont be as bad, the company is after all trying to make some money if they put a game out that you can beat in 8 hours or 20 hours, well then they wont make money from you as a Sub cause you beat the game already.
All games seem grindy in one way or another but they have some qualities that will keep us coming back, the only thing we need to hope for is that XIV does what I mentioned before make it fun for us.
Thanks a lot for the detailed answers guys but i need some clarification on some aspects. So as i understand it there is a storyline and everything with quests so why exactly do people grind? are the stories more or so spread apart as in you finish one by level 10 and the next one starts at 12 so you then have to grind to that level or do the stories not reward you with exp?
As for guildleves, as you explained it seems like there more or so like "dailies" or repetable quests on other games and arent the main quests?
Another question I had about the story was voice acting, is there much of it to tell the story or is the voice acting just like other MMOs with NPCs saying a few words every now and then? I also noticed that the released cutscenes had no voice acting aswell so will those have any ?
As for grind, yes I understand every game has grind but I'm worried about the amount of it present. As far as I know, FF11 is the most grindy p2p game out there right now so will the grind be like that or will it be more akin to current MMOs?
This leads to another question, the fact that you can train any weapon is awesome but I heard there is a physical level which also increases as you level your weapons so is there a cap on the physical level where you can only train say 4 weapons? or is the max cap of the game when you have every weapon at its max level which Im sure will take quite a long time to get to.
And lastly, am i right to assume that this game is a hybrid of sandbox and themepark gameplay? As I read more about the game it seems to resemble runescape which I absolutely loved for its variety in gameplay and if this is the case I'm so sold.
Ah, I have been looking for that article. A good read with lots of truth in it.
Anyway, I think we should step of the notion of Guild Leves as 'quests' and rather see them as 'tasks' or 'assignments' given to you by the respective Guilds, hence the name.
A Guild in the Final Fantasy MMO's is not your standard definition of a guild in just about every other MMO. That is what Linkshells and the soon to be Companies are ment for. A guild in Final Fantasy is an NPC run association. Generally they provide job/class relevant items(e.g. basic crafting materials) and/or some form of training/workshop. Players can become members of a guild to reap some added rewards or benefits, but the number of guilds you can join at any given time will probably be limited. Becoming a member of a guild could for example give you access to a range of otherwise inaccessible Leves or up the ante on the reward side, etc.
In FFXIV these Guilds have also taken it upon themselves to collect the woes of the citizenry -- or their own needs for that matter -- and redistribute them as tasks for 'arms for hire' (you), for which they will be payed handsomely in Gil and useful items.
Completing a Leve will therefor not give any XP of itself, but the mobs you encounter during the execution of a Leve do. The general idea behind this is to balance everything out a bit and to -- as mentioned in the article linked by vi2023ly -- refrain people from quest-grinding (severely negates the need for parties and thus undermines the social structure of an MMO).
I could of course be completely off the mark with all of the above (seen as it is mostly guessing and speculation), thus making me look foolish, but I sincerely doubt it.
Talking about the leves they are described as dailies, I am not sure if they repeat (or similar to the dailies that you get in WoW like for cooking where you have 5 different ones that they cycle through) them but the fact that you can only do so many in a 48 hour period screams of dailies or every-two-dailies
. From what I have also read and gathered from video's and all that is that some of them are timed based. So if this is the case and having and doing said leves nets you extra XP for just having the leve, not that you get XP after you turn it in or anything, just that you might get a buff that gives you I dont know 10% extra XP, or turning in the leve will allow you higher drop rates of something or another since they said after you turn it in you get a buff. But then again the whole timed thing kind of kills it if you do get bonus XP while doing the leves since once you run out of time your hosed and you lose the XP bonus.
Sorry just rambling on, need more info from SE! Lets see what they put out this following week...
On another note I loved what they did with the official website, looks great I think, if your confused about a month ago it was diffrent than what it is now.
I personally found the older website much more easier to navigate through.
Also thanks for the replies, I'm still a little confused but I'm sure someone would clear that up.
We are just going to have to wait and see what carrots of information SE releases, a lot of the info is incomplete so we have to wait for the official info SE puts out. Lots of guessing for the most part right now, I am sure in the next few weeks we will have more, after all next month we will be on the whole 30 day count down to launch.
Ye definitely hope that SE releases info before the game launches and we don't have to wait for players or fansites to tell you what exactly is going on.
Expect only generalized info as we've already been getting and nothing more than that. With FFXI SE has never told us anything beyond say the lines of "we added new gear" ~ "we added new spells" ~ "we added new quests" ~ "etc." We were then tasked with having to go figure it all out ourselves, where it dropped, what items crafted it, who started the quest.
Besides isn't that the way a game should be anyway, playing it and learning as you go. Its like why play a game if you already know everything going into it ~ then its similar to a linear path and you know what to expect and where to go and how to get certain things...
Ah well...
I actually quite like those kind of patch notes but not when they relate to nerfs or spell changes and the like. But I disagree with the fact that they're shouldnt be any info on the game basics, you definitely need that kind of info in detail on the main website.
I hope so i have some more info from another thread that someone did that will help some as well.
Quest System
- The game features two type of Quests: Class Quests and Guildleves. Class quests tell the story of Eorzea through various cutscenes and encounters and it is the main 'storyline' portion of the game. Large number of cutscenes feature voice acting in English, with subtitles provided for French, German and Japanese.
- Guildleves are the 'quests' of FFXIV. They are used to progress your character further in the game. Rewards vary from gil (money) to equipment or items. Currently, you do not gain experience points nor skill points for completing the leves.
- Each guildleve has 5 difficulties, based on stars. The more stars, the harder the objectives will be and the bigger group you need to beat the leve in question. 1 star means the leve is soloable, 5 stars mean you will potentially need more than 10 players to tackle the monsters. The more stars there are, the greater the rewards will be.
- There are Guildleves for combat classes, crafters and gatherers. Combat & Gathering leves are called "regional leves" and they happen on the field. "Local leves" on the other hand happen in the city or it's surrounding areas and have been created with crafters in mind.
- Regional guildleves have a time limit to them, varying from 30 minutes to even days. The faster you complete the task, the greater the bonus reward will be.
- Leves with time limit are Phased, meaning that you will be out in the open field with everyone else, however the quest objectives are claimed for you and your group and other people can not see them until you engage the monster. This is a countermeasure to prevent the leve from failing just because there weren't enough monsters and you ran out of time because of it.
- Many leves have a surprise element to them. To give you a basic example, let's say that you have to go get 5 pages of papyrus from the nearby areas. Easy enough, right? Well, as you collect the pages suddenly you're ambushed by a bunch of elementals that you have to kill to proceed. To give you another example, the leve objective may tell you to kill 2 Dodo's, so you go out and engage them... and they decide to call for back-up! Now you're suddenly facing against 4 Dodo's. On top of that, the last Dodo whilst being overwhelmed decides to run away to his friends. If you can't stop him in time he'll run off and you have to chase him. The final battle would then be against 3 more, even harder Dodo's. Those are the basic examples.
- Regional Leves tell you very specifically where you need to go. It is indicated on the mini-map very clearly. That doesn't mean that's all there is to the quest however, as I mentioned the "surprise element", however you won't waste unnecessary time looking for the mobs from the quite massive area wherein the leve takes place. Local leves are a bit less forgiving, and you may need to do some searching around to find the right NPC in the town or it's outskirts.
- Once done with your leve, an Aetheryte node pops up which you can use to restore your HP, MP, and teleport back to camp.
- Each Leve can only be done once in a set amount of time. To do more leves than that, you need to team up with other people and help them with their leves. You are rewarded for doing so accordingly.
- By completing Guildleves, you gain "cards" that you can use to boost the rewards of the next Leve. You can also mix guildleves together to create "campaigns" with various objectives.
- By doing leves you also generate Regional Influence points which can be exchanged for Special type of Leves called Faction leves. It is not yet known what do these leves do.
- In a set amount of time you also gain Guardian's Favor which can be exchanged for something like "an amulet" of sorts you can use to boost your skill growth for a period of time.
Sorry its don't say much on the class quest part i think that might still be under NDA but not sure. Just though i would throw some info on the quest system out there incase no one seen the other thread. Pm me if anyone wants to talk about 14.
Ah yes i was reading that thread aswell, it should definitely be stickied. Anyways, i believe You guys have answered most of my questions and after reading quite a bit I think i know all there is from what what the devs have announced themselves. Again thanks everyone for the help!